Objective: To compare a computerized intraosseous anesthesia system with the conventional oral anesthesia techniques, and analyze the latency and duration of the anesthetic effect and patient preference.
Design: A simple-blind prospective study was made between March 2007 and May 2008. Each patient was subjected to two anesthetic techniques: conventional and intraosseous using the Quicksleeper® system (DHT, Cholet, France). A split-mouth design was adopted in which each patient underwent treatment of a tooth with one of the techniques, and treatment of the homologous contralateral tooth with the other technique. The treatments consisted of restorations, endodontic procedures and simple extractions.
Results: The study series comprised 12 females and 18 males with a mean age of 36.8 years. The 30 subjects underwent a total of 60 anesthetic procedures. Intraosseous and conventional oral anesthesia caused discomfort during administration in 46.3% and 32.1% of the patients, respectively. The latency was 7.1±2.23 minutes for the conventional technique and 0.48±0.32 for intraosseous anesthesia--the difference being statistically significant. The depth of the anesthetic effect was sufficient to allow the patients to tolerate the dental treatments. The duration of the anesthetic effect in soft tissues was 199.3 minutes with the conventional technique versus only 1.6 minutes with intraosseous anesthesia--the difference between the two techniques being statistically significant. Most of the patients (69.7%) preferred intraosseous anesthesia.
Conclusions: The described intraosseous anesthetic system is effective, with a much shorter latency than the conventional technique, sufficient duration of anesthesia to perform the required dental treatments, and with a much lesser soft tissue anesthetic effect. Most of the patients preferred intraosseous anesthesia.